The fall of Troy

Had the Prince asked West Australian Premier
Colin Barnett
a few years ago what he’d be doing by now, chances are he’d have said he’d be retired, writing his memoirs and playing a bit of tennis on Perth’s pristine grass courts.

Barnett has spent more than 20 years in the WA Parliament, including four long years as opposition leader.

Then came the relentlessly ambitious
Troy Buswell
, and Barnett was ready to retire with dignity intact in 2007.

Unfortunately, Buswell rarely gets a mention without reference to his having sniffed the chair of a female Liberal staffer, snapped the bra of a Labor staffer, left his wife to pursue a relationship with a Greens MP turned independent, and is now sleeping on a fellow MP’s couch.

Following one Troy faux pas too many, Barnett was hastily recycled as leader just before Labor called a snap election in 2008 which, much to some surprise, he won, breaking Labor’s stranglehold on all parliaments state and federal.

It was all going swimmingly. Barnett even had a succession plan until he lost
Christian Porter
, the treasurer who was to succeed him but who has decided that federal politics looks more rewarding.

That leaves Barnett once again propping up the WA Liberals, trapped in his own Hotel California.